The Massacre Part 4/4: Bell of Doom

So, the Doctor is dead? And everyone thinks Steven killed him, and also they think that the Doctor is this  Abbot dude, so Steven is being chased across Paris by a bunch of cardinal guards and a horde of angry Catholics. Also there is a part where a character mentions that it's St Bartholomew's Day tomorrow, and as the full title of this serial is The Massacre of St Bartholomew's Eve, then I think I have an inkling of what's going to go down.

It is the morning after and Steven is okay! He managed to evade the guard and hid... somewhere... during the curfew. He goes back to Preslin's abandoned shop and finds Annevieve! She asks what he plans to do with his life now everything has gone to shit, and the only thing Steven can think to do is to find the TARDIS key and get out of there. Maybe the Doctor changed into his Abbot clothes while he was at the shop, Steven reasons, so maybe his Doctor clothes are still kicking around somewhere and MAYBE the TARDIS key is in the pocket or something. It's a long shot, everyone admits, but the two of them set about to searching the shop anyway.

After a while Annevieve finds the Doctor's walking stick and brings it to Steven. Steven demands to know where she found it and if there was anything else with it; Annevieve says that, no! It was in the back room! There are no clothes anywhere!

ANNE: I've searched everywhere!
STEVEN: Then why the stick? He - he couldn't have pretended to be the Abbot dressed as he was. So he must have changed somewhere. But where?
ANNE: Perhaps he went away somewhere with the apothecary who used to live here?
STEVEN: With Preslin? No he couldn't.
ANNE: Why not?
STEVEN: Because Preslin is either dead or in prison.
DOCTOR: He is not.

OHHHHH what an entrance. You got STYLE, Doctor.

Meanwhile, Admiral de Coligny is still all shot in the arm and stuff. Angry Gaston warns him that the Catholics still want him dead, he should leave Paris right now! Boyfriend/Carer Nicholas gently tells Gaston that, look bro, the Admiral has a pretty hefty bullet wound, he can't really go sneaking out of heavily guarded buildings into the night. Gaston walks away in a huff, and the Admiral and Nicholas have a nice little chat (of course, because Nicholas is wonderful).

Back au magasin de Preslin, the Doctor is acting like the Abbot was not him at all. I... don't know what to believe. Maybe the Abbot really did just look exactly like him? Steven seems to think so. The Doctor, who has missed being obnoxious in the hours that he was maybe dead(?), dives right back in.

DOCTOR: Oh, my dear boy, had you stayed at the tavern all this mix-up could have been avoided.
STEVEN: I did stay in the tavern, you didn't turn up!
DOCTOR: Yes, well, I was unavoidably delayed. Never mind that now. Come along, we must go. Come along.

Then Anne mentions something about it being St Bartholomew's Day tomorrow and the Doctor pauses. He demands to know the year (1572) and then gets crazy and interrogates Anne, asking her if there's anywhere she can go stay for the night. She's points out that she's kipping in an abandoned shop, she's pretty low on choice, but the Doctor forces her out of the door and tells her to go stay at her aunt's house or something. As soon as Anne is out of the way, the Doctor grabs Steven and tells him that they need to leave too! Right now!

The Catholics, who are definitely the bad guys in this serial, are busy plotting. Marshal Tavannes (Catholic in Charge) is drawing up a list of Huguenots they need to kill, but then the Queen Mother knocks on his door and is all, 'You know what? We don't really need a list. Kill them all!' Tavannes asks if that includes Prince Henri, her son-in-law, and she cheerfully replies that it definitely does, yep! Tavannes tries to talk her down from her crazy, and she eventually concedes that if he's out of the city by tomorrow then he will have no death brought upon him. Simon is put in charge of the prince's safekeeping. He's pretty gutted that he's not allowed to even injure him a little. Catholics are all bloody crazy, man.

Hiding behind a wall near the Abbot's house, where there are Catholics standing guard, the Doctor and Steven debate how they're going to get past them and back to the TARDIS. They can't risk just walking past them because it's early morning, the curfew is still in effect. But then! Two other guards come to relieve the old ones of the post, and then a bunch more arrive and start battering down the door to the Abbot's house. Steven and the Doctor make a run for it!

And... well, I mean, they make it. And then dematerialise. So. That's that story over with, then, isn't it. Oh, and Steven never got to say goodbye to Nicholas! Boo. There's still like ten minutes of the episode left but after it's done you can bet your arse I'm reading the Wiki article for this massacre thing so I can get some decent closure. Anne/Genevieve and Nicholas better be mentioned in that article and they better have happy endings. God.

Floating around in time and space, Steven gets pretty angry that the Doctor knew all this was going to happen and yet he left people like Anne and Nicholas (of course he mentions Nicholas I'm actually pretty sure their ~love was canon) there to die. He also says that he's sick of this, and next time the TARDIS materialises somewhere, he's getting off. BABY, NO.

I hate everything.

The Doctor then has a little soliloquy where he reminisces about his past companions. Ian Chesterton of the Pre-Moosh Watches Who era gets a special mention, which is nice, cos I liked him, and the Doctor also says that he wants to go back to his home planet, but because he has a shit TARDIS, he can't. It's all very sad.

BUT THEN a girl bursts inside the TARDIS, looking for the phone, because the TARDIS looks like a police phone box. The Doctor tells her to go away, there is no phone here. But there's been an accident, she says in a really endearing northern accent, she has to ring the police right now and also who are you, crazy man in a box? The Doctor tries to explain that he's a man of science! And this is his machine for travelling relative dimensions in space! But before he can finish bewildering the poor girl, Steven comes back! Hello, sweetheart! I missed you!

Steven is all, 'Look I can't go into it right now but there are two policemen coming this way so can we dematerialise now pls,' so he's almost definitely defiled some public property or something. The Doctor genuinely says, "They'll want to use the telephone or something like it!" like telephones are the worst thing ever thought of, and dematerialises in a hurry.

It's at that point that Steven notices that, hello, there's another person in this TARDIS. Steven is distressed, because that is a young girl that the Doctor has just taken away from her entire life with no way of returning, there. The Doctor is confused at Steven's displeasure.

STEVEN: Doctor, how could you?
DOCTOR: What else could I do, dear boy? You don't want a couple of policemen aboard the TARDIS, do you? You know you're the most inconsistent young man? Just now you were telling me off for not having that Chaplet girl aboard!
STEVEN: Yeah because this is the EXACT SAME SITUATION you complete moron.

It's all cool, though, the new girl doesn't have any parents, she lives with her great-aunt and they don't get along. Also they ask her name - it is Dodo, but her full name is Dorothea Chaplet, which is the same surname as Anne/Genevieve. Fancy that.

And that's it! The next episode is called The Steel Sky. Do you reckon it's a cyberman one? If it were a reboot episode I'd say it was definitely cybermen, but I think the cybermen of Classic Who were made of cloth or smthn, so. Let's wait and see.

Also I guess the Abbot was just the Abbot all along? Um. Okay. Well. Good.

Moosh